A second novel (though first to be published in the US) from expatriot American writer Amidon combines a story of alcoholism and the family with a suspenser involving business chicanery and Native Americans. Daniel North is a young American actor living in London, preparing to see his father for the first time in 13 years. But Cal dies of a heart attack on the flight to London, leaving Daniel curious about the mysterious business deal his father wanted to tell him about. He accompanies the body back to Phoenix, where he meets two strangers—his stepmother Lindy and his half-brother James. Cal, an alcoholic, had left Daniel and his mother (since dead) out of shame, and (so Daniel now learns) moved in with Lindy, another alcoholic; only when they were about to lose little James to a foster-home did both parents come to their senses, climb on the wagon, and head West, where Cal found work selling water rights. Daniel and Lindy reach a wary accommodation; he will stay in Phoenix for a time, though their desert subdivision is uninviting and neither Lindy nor Cal's boss, Richard Sweetman, can solve the mystery of Cal's latest deal. As Lindy, scared at suddenly being a single parent, goes on a terrifying, life- threatening bender, Daniel's sleuthing leads him to a nearby Indian reservation, where he learns that Cal had planned to divert water illegally from a government irrigation project in return for a large kickback from the Indians; left unexplained is why Cal would have flown off in the midst of such tricky negotiations. Soon after Daniel's discovery, the plot collapses in melodramatic confusion. The best writing here is about alcoholism; once Amidon's plotting becomes as effective as his taut style, he may write a novel of real power.
Pub Date: June 15, 1993
ISBN: 0-88001-296-X
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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